Nonfiction and Postmodernism

[carlin08]

I'm curious whether or not you feel a postmodernist approach is effective in works of nonfiction. I'm writing my thesis on Lauren Slater's memoir, _Lying_. She takes a postmodernist perspective and asks the reader to question the whole notion of truth by blurring the line that separates fact from fiction. My question to you is, are you comfortable with this? Are you comfortable with a memoirist admitting that they are lying; that they use fabrication and exaggeration to get at the truth of experience?

I guess a follow up question would be, what are some of the expectations that you as readers have regarding nonfiction? What distinctions can you make between a work of fiction and a work of nonfiction? And how comfortable are you with a writer who insists on blurring those lines?

Note: There is a great strand on Postmodernism in the General Literature forum. I think it's the 52nd strand.

[PeterL]

Last year I thought long and hard about the distinction between fiction and non-fiction. The only difference with which I was confident was the author's intention. There are works that are complete fiction that the author believed to be true or presented as true, and such works are taken as non-fiction. conversely, there are novels that are completely accurate accounts of actual events, except for a few names, and those works are considered fiction even though they are true. Autobiographies are infamous for the heavy coloring of truth, but people still accept them as non-fiction.

I believe that it is the responsibility of the reader to make any necessary distinction. Authors write what they write.

[patrickbeverley]

Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior is a marvellous piece of semi-fictional non-fiction.

SPOILER There's a bit where she tells a whole story in rich, textured detail about her mother and her aunt, from an account of her brother's telling. The next chapter then begins, "What my brother actually said was, 'I drove Mom and Second Aunt to Los Angeles to see Aunt's husband who's got the other wife.'" Then there are a few more lines of dialogue that explain a little more of the story. That is all. The whole previous chapter is Kingston's invention, based on a few words her brother said to her. This is so unsettling, and so interesting, that it makes one want to go back to the beginning of the book and read it again in light of this discovery.

[stlukesguild]

Writers have blurred the line between fact and fiction since first they began to write. Its surely no Post-Modern invention. The "histories" of Herodotus, Thucydides, Vasari, Gibbons, etc... include embellishment, exaggerations, hearsay, rumor, and pure fictive invention. The same can certainly be said of DeQuincy's and Boswell's biographical works. Burton's Anatomy of Melancholia goes so far as to make use of misquoted... or even intentionally inverted quotes... wrongly attributed. Of course the early novelists made a great show of playing up the factual basis of their works... suggesting quite often that they (the author) were but repeating, translating, or retelling a narrative first told or discovered by them... but never having invented it. This strategy becomes a favorite among a number of Post-Modern writers... but you also find the blurring of "fact" and "fiction" with J.L. Borges' use of invented quotes from non-existent books, his literary criticisms of a non-existent writer, his essays complete with proper footnotes, citations, etc... that are in all actuality... as fictive as anything. And then you have Norman Mailer's "new journalism".

[carlin08]

Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior is a marvellous piece of semi-fictional non-fiction.

SPOILER There's a bit where she tells a whole story in rich, textured detail about her mother and her aunt, from an account of her brother's telling. The next chapter then begins, "What my brother actually said was, 'I drove Mom and Second Aunt to Los Angeles to see Aunt's husband who's got the other wife.'" Then there are a few more lines of dialogue that explain a little more of the story. That is all. The whole previous chapter is Kingston's invention, based on a few words her brother said to her. This is so unsettling, and so interesting, that it makes one want to go back to the beginning of the book and read it again in light of this discovery.

I'm glad you brought up Kingston's text because it relates to my initial question about nonfiction. She, too, uses fabrication and exaggeration in her memoir, but perhaps the comfort is in the fact that these exaggerated moments are so unbelievable that we (as the reader) can never mistake them as being factual evidence from one's past. Like Slater, it seems that Kingston wants us to consider what these moments represent--i.e., thoughts, feelings, emotions, etc.,--vs. how they depict (or convey) the factual reality of one's life experience. Again, the question of whether or not this is to be expected from works of nonfiction still haunts me. What do you expect to find in works of nonfiction? Is it acceptable that a writer deliberately lies to the reader?

[carlin08]

PeterL: I believe that it is the responsibility of the reader to make any necessary distinction. Authors write what they write.[/QUOTE]

But how can the reader make these distinctions if they are not telling the story? It's a bit of a power struggle to some extent. In terms of nonfiction, isn't the assumption that the writer always knows more than the reader? If not, then who is in control of the narrative? You seem to be suggesting that the reader has a stake in determining what is true and what is fiction, what is fact and what is fabrication. I would argue, however, that the position of the reader is much more powerless.

[J.D.]

If you describe the way the clouds drifted by on a summer day in 1955, I'm fine with that. Who cares? It probably isn't central to the story and merely provides texture--makes the reading more pleasurable. When you go intentionally messing with what people said or did and you aren't forthright about it, now I have a problem. It comes down to intent. If you sell something as nonfiction, you should provide a factual account to the best of your abilities. You can interpret things as you choose, but you cannot knowingly alter or invent facts. Concerning those who intend to blur fact and fiction as a matter of art: no one should prevent them from doing so, but they should be forthright about what they've done.

[carlin08]

J.D.--I want to add on to your point about being forthright. What's interesting about Lauren Slater's memoir is that she admits that she lies (or exaggerates) certain aspects about her past, but by the end of her memoir, you are still not sure which parts are true and which ones are false.

For instance, she tells the reader that she had epilepsy as a child, but then admits that she could be lying, or using epilepsy as a metaphor to represent her relationship with her mother. Her lack of honesty as a narrator is apparent, which, in a sense, means that she is being forthright. But she is still not telling us what is true about herself. That is to say, the reader doesn't know if she really had epilepsy. The rest of her narrative insists that she did have epilepsy, but there is still that doubt, that level of uncertainty, that Slater leaves the reader with.

Is this right for her to do? Or is she in some way failing to meet her obligations as a memoirist?

(By the way, the issue of whether or not she had epilepsy is a major part of her story).

[J.D.]

If it is obviously apparent that a reader will not be able to tell truth from fiction, that truth and fiction is going to be a trope in your story, then that's being forthright, in my opinion, because you've given the reader the necessary information to take your story with a grain of salt.

But there are common sense limits on this, too. For instance, if it is obviously apparent that you will not be able to tell truth from fiction, that truth and fiction is going to be a trope in your story, but then you portray your mother as an abusive, drug-using monster--making up things that never happened--and the reader never can never figure out for certain what is true or false, then I think you have a problem.